


Moments

by WomanOfWinterfell



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Spoilers, non-romantic, unclear feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-04
Updated: 2014-01-04
Packaged: 2017-11-23 14:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/623345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WomanOfWinterfell/pseuds/WomanOfWinterfell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tyrion's thoughts on the youngest Stark girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> suggested by anonymous and desperatelyseekingtimelord

The first time he saw her she was nine. 

She stood alongside her family, clothed in a fine dress that fit her seamlessly, despite her picking and pulling at it, as if it were dreadfully uncomfortable. 

At the time, Tyrion had chuckled to himself. In that moment he decided Arya Stark amused him. 

He never got a chance to speak to the young Stark girl during his stay at Winterfell, but he would see her now and again running around the castle, her dress dirty and torn. He would often see her hiding in the training yard, watching her brothers and his nephews as they practiced at their weaponry. At times like this, when he was close enough, he could see her eyes alight, fascinated by the clashing of metal, that is until her Septa would start calling for her. Then her eyes would flash with dread and she would scamper away. 

Although his favorite times to watch her was when she was in the godswood, running through the brambles with her wolf. Her laughter, mixed with growls and barks, echoed through the trees. 

In those moments Tyrion thought she looked like a Wilding, free and unbound. 

When he traveled to the Wall with the Stark bastard, Jon he was called, he learned more of the wild child. 

Tyrion was careful when asking Jon about his life, asking a variety of questions, but was always able to gently swerve the answer to involve his favorite Stark child. 

He learned much of Arya through Jon Snow. Her adventurous side was already known to him, but he enjoyed hearing stories of the pranks and tricks she played on her sister, her love of warrior songs, that she loved her bastard brother most of all, that she named her sword Needle, the fact that she had desired a sword in the first place. 

The more he heard of Arya Stark the more he looked forward to getting to know her when he returned to the Red Keep. 

However, that would never come to pass.

By the time he finally returned to the capital ,Arya was gone, perhaps dead, and her sister a prisoner in a gilded cage. 

He was kind to Sansa, not only for Sansa herself, but since she was the sister of the Stark he so wished to know. 

He wedded, but never bedded Sansa, for Arya Stark seemed like the kind of girl that would bed no one but her own choice, and so he extended the same grace to her sister. 

Joffrey was killed and everything changed. Sansa vanished, he found the not so dead Aegon Targaryen, the exiled Mormont, and the young trusting Penny. All the while he journeyed between imprisonment, freedom, slavery, and joining the company of sellswords. 

During this chaos and travel, Tyrion thought on how Joffrey’s death would have at least brought Arya some joy. 

It took time and effort to convince the Second Sons to side with Daenerys, and even longer to find her across the Dothraki Sea. 

When they finaly met, Tyrion thought Arya would have liked this woman, since Daenerys was so much like Arya’s favorite warrior queen from the old songs. 

It was one morning, back in Meereen, Tyrion was sleeping in. Their planning session on reclaiming the Iron Throne had gone long into the night. That is why it so surprised him that he was woken by a pounding on his door, demanding his presence in the hall imminently. 

With Tyrion’s mind filling with the worst possibilities, he hurried from his chamber, where he found the hall not full of advisers or captains, but a single erect young woman. 

Tall, limber, and thin. Pale skin, dark hair, grey eyes. 

She no longer stood by her family, the majority of her family being long gone and across the Narrow Sea. Dressed in trousers and shirt, her garb was not raggedy but also not clean. A sword hung at her belt, yet her stance, her posture, the regal look in her eyes, all clearly stated her birth.

Tyrion chuckled to himself. 

It seemed he still had a chance to get to know Arya Stark.


	2. Watching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tyrion is once again in the presence of Arya Stark, but it is not going as well as he wished. He continues to muse over the strange woman that is Lady Stark,

He was watching her, as he often did. She knew he was there, though she never spoke to him or turned to look at him. Arya knew when someone was watching her. 

It was almost a game at this point. Every day since he made his oaths to Daenerys, Tyrion had come here, to stand in the shade, mostly hidden, behind one of the stone pillars that decorated the courtyard of Daenerys’ palace. Arya would practice her water dancing every afternoon under the sweltering Meereen sun, and she would completely ignore him. 

While her passive refusal to acknowledge him was not the reaction he might have hoped for, it was better than the expected reaction of killing him. Then again, he had been present when Daenerys had ordered Arya to leave Tyrion unharmed in every regard. The emphasis she’d put on the last part still left him with a tinge of worry, but he was considerable sure that Arya would keep her word to Daenerys, at least for now.

She would not talk to him or admit to his existence, but she was also not going to harm him. He liked to think he could work with that. Tyrion still remembered the young child who had captured his mind at Winterfell, and wanted to find glimpses of that girl in the woman she’d become and yet also wanted to know this woman in front of him. This Arya was no longer the child that wishfully watched her brothers play at swords; but a woman that practiced her own, deadly, art. This Arya no longer pulled and tugged at dresses, but wore shirts and britches as if they were a second skin. She had evolved so much from the young child he once saw, and now enticed him more than she had previously.

Tyrion sighed as he watched her. He could see why it was called dancing, for it was graceful and fluid and, without the blade in her hand, it would look like a quick stepping foreign dance. She spun in all directions, jumping, rolling, and swiftly moving across the courtyard, her sword shimmering in the afternoon light. 

_She is definitely enticing_ , Tyrion mused, but not in the way that women usually allured Tyrion. She was beautiful; there was no denying that. The horse-faced young girl had grown slender, toned, and developed curves in all the right places, despite the loose clothing she wore that almost hid her maturing form. Regardless, Tyrion reminded himself again, she was lovely, but in a deadly way.

While the bodies of most women gave a promise of delicacy, of soft caresses, and loving hands, Arya’s body did not suggest any of this. She promised a fight in bed, a battle for dominance, scratching nails, and a deep hungry passion. Of course, he didn’t know for sure, but he imagined that this she-wolf was all bite in bed. He was not, however, interested in finding the truth of this theory. That could be a braver man’s endeavor. 

She had stilled now, Tyrion noticed, sweat glistening and drying on her skin, drenching her shirt. He observed Arya walking over to a servant and speaking briefly, then closing her eyes as the servant left. 

Arya remained outside in the sun, head thrown back to let the sun shine right on her face, as if she were a pale flower, absorbing the light. With her eyes still closed, she slid the sword back into the scabbard, and rested her hand on the other sword on her belt: a small, child-sized sword. She just stood there in the sun, her hand softly caressing the hilt, frozen but not for that stroking hand. 

Her statuesque appearance was disrupted when the servant returned to set two goblets on a stone bench, pouring wine before leaving once again. Arya followed in the servant’s steps. Without halting stride, she picked up one of the silver cups, took a sip, and then disappeared through the open doorway into the dark shadows inside. 

Now, with the courtyard to himself, Tyrion walked over to the bench to find the goblet of wine waiting for him. He allowed himself to laugh as he sat on the bench and picked up the wine, swirling it contentedly. 

_At least_ , he thought as he sipped the wine, _this counted as acknowledgment._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that this was once a one-shot, but I got enough messages that I continued it.
> 
> I also want to thank my two beta readers from fanfiction.net:
> 
> androidilenya and CloudyDream


End file.
